Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed For Men by Caroline Criado Perez, Chatto & Windus, 2019, 432 pages
In the period that followed the Middle Ages, Europe underwent a wonderous age of cultural, artistic, political, and economic revival. Dating from the periods between 14th Century, to the 17th Century, the age of The Renaissance promoted rationale, logic, and intellectualism. What emerged soon after was The Enlightenment, a movement dominated by the ideals of progress, liberty, and toleration. Never had there been a period where such ideals dominated the public discourse, over dogmatism and fear. It seemed as though Europe was spearheading the path of progression. Or so it seemed. The Renaissance was anything but for women, who were barred from intellectual and artistic life. Likewise, The Enlightenment, though making headway for women to enter discussions and debates within the public sphere, were still largely excluded from receiving higher education, and professional training. All the while expanding the rights of man.
What then to make of such gilded Ages? Was it such that the exclusionary nature was down to malicious intent to ensure women would never be placed on a level playing field to men? Or was it that women were given the second-class treatment due to a pre-ordained mentality that relegated their roles in society. In Invisible Women, feminist campaigner Caroline Criado Perez builds the idea that women, and their status, are often ignored and relegated systematically simply by living in a world designed for men. The consequences of which result in a world where women are more at risk of being seriously injured in a car crash, or where doctor prescriptions are ineffective, or worse, potentially lethal due to physiological differences, to name a few. The examples, amongst many others, which transpire due to an invisible data bias in research which perpetuates the yawning gap of knowledge on what both men and women require in various aspects of their lives.
This consequence occurs, she explains, because we have accumulated and analysed data that should’ve been stratified into sexes. A term she calls “sex disaggregated data”. In other words, when conducting academic or scientific research, the data gathered on men and women have been lumped together as if they’re both held by the same factors that influence and affect them daily.
In her book, she paints a picture of what is the default individual that springs to one’s mind when conducting data analysis. Namely, a young, healthy, white man, otherwise referred to as the “default male”. It is the tyranny of this misrepresentation that has oppressed women, the author explains, in three fundamental areas. That is, the female body, violence against women, and women’s unpaid care burden in society. All of which are a recurring theme throughout the book. One particular case is that of Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg. Whilst working at Google in 2014, during pregnancy she realised how difficult it was getting across Google’s huge car park. It was only through her demands that the company finally offered reserved parking for pregnant women. This lack of accessible parking owed to a data gap in that none of the senior management had ever experienced pregnancy; with Sergey Brin (one of Google’s founders) stating that he had “never thought about it before”.
What’s telling in her examples throughout the book is that quite often these biased ways of thinking can be unintentional. She uses the example of Sweden where the local government of Scania County were planning on efficiently accommodating travel plans during the winter months via snow-clearing. Citing a 2007 World Bank report on gender and urban transport showing that women were more likely to use public transport, and men to travel by cars. The government of Scania County prioritised clearing the snow on roads over public foot-ways (as naturally bus and train terminals are accessed by footpaths). Although not intentional to favour the men’s needs over the women, the prioritisation did affect women’s travel plans more. However, after the government conducted a study on travel plans, they discovered that healthcare costs and loss of productivity due to slips and falls cost roughly £3.2m in a single winter season. They then prioritised snow clearing on footpaths, over the roads. The impact was such that in Stockholm, the associated costs reduced by almost half, as well as seeing an uptick in women’s overall productivity.
It’s note-worthy how the examples and their key arguments set out in this book are purely based on empirical data. And that forms the crux of Invisible Women. This is not a book about philosophy. It doesn’t try to win you over by theorising the moral virtues of promoting the cause of feminism. It simply gives you the facts and evidence, painstakingly gathered through Criado Perez’s extensive research. Food for thought then on whether the author made the intentional decision of framing the book in such a way so as to appeal to a broad of an audience as possible. Regardless, when moving from one chapter to the next, it’s hard not to feel exasperated at how pervasive the data bias issue is and how far-reaching it can be, as each chapter covers a different aspect of life whereby women are affected through biased data-driven decisions.
That said, Invisible Women doesn’t necessarily provide clear-cut solutions on how to tackle the myriad of issues women are facing. Nor does it by and large even seek to create a pathway towards a solution for each particular issue. But this isn’t a stark criticism of the author. What she’s actually done is shine a light on a number of areas so that awareness is raised for leaders and policymakers on the most urgent problems. For change to occur, there must first be empirical data to back up an assertion, and Invisible Women does exactly that. It is very literally giving the change-makers the evidence they’ve been sleeping on, and saying “here you go, now let’s doing something about this”.
While Invisible Women does a good job of pointing out the areas of concern for women, it fails largely to represent the minority subsets. There is a shocking lack of attention given to women from ethnic minority backgrounds and how their experience differs widely from Caucasian women. The same can be said for members of the LGBTQ community. Invisible Women would’ve made a bigger impact had it included specific issues that transgender, non-binary, or bisexual women uniquely face, as these cases tend to overlooked. While the book could’ve done with greater intersectionality, it’s a wonder whether the author may not have included such cases due to a serious lack of data, or because it would’ve run the risk of making the conversation convoluted.
Despite this, Invisible Women does make a strong enough statement that if we fail to overcome the male-biased level of thinking, then we will continue to misrepresent women in data, and ultimately fail to accommodate their requirements at the workplace and in society. Diversity of thought allows us to uncover our unconscious biases which once exposed, grants us the freedom to allow for better judgement within our everyday decision-making. For that reason, Invisible Women is an important and relevant read.
Sameer Qureshi 